


The Time For Sleep Is Now

by kiriya



Category: Kamen Rider Build
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, No White Panel, Past Child Abuse, Past Himuro Gentoku/Katsuragi Takumi, Post-War, Trans Male Character, no reset
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 03:45:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15788274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiriya/pseuds/kiriya
Summary: Instead of one ghost, they're haunted by two.





	The Time For Sleep Is Now

**Author's Note:**

> warning: this is VERY angst heavy and doesn't have a happy ending so like. don't read it if that's not for you!

_love of mine,_ _  
_ _  
_ _someday you will die,_ _  
_ _  
_ _but i’ll be close behind…_

  
**;;**

  
Everyone leaves.  
  
That’s the pattern in Misora’s life, usually.  
  
Her childhood, for the most part, was lonely. It existed in the shadow of her mother’s death and her father’s pain. Oba-san, a caretaker her father hired to wait on her, picked her up from school every day, where the other children shifted away from her and would whisper among themselves about the distasteful way Michiko Isurugi had died.

At night, she and Oba-san made up friends for her: five girls with different personalities that would stay by her side and love her. During her bedtime stories, they fought evil, then Misora would go to bed and see them again in her dreams. She was always happy, while asleep.

How fitting, then, that powers beyond this world would throw her into a deep sleep that would consume half her life.  
  
It is better now, though. Vernage is gone, so her eyelids aren’t perpetually heavy. That bone deep ache of over-exertion is now a phantom feeling, like when her wrist itches from a bangle that's no longer there, and when Misora sleeps, she dreams again.  
  
In her dreams, she hears the ding of the bottle purifier and Sento’s excited squeal. She sees Grease putting Banjou into a headlock and rubbing his fist into his braids. She feels Sawa’s calming touch; her fingers around shoulder and her palms rubbing slow circles on the small of her back. She hears her voice, assuring that she’s here and that everything is going to be okay.

Often, Misora repeats the last night they all spent together. She smells Grease’s cooking and feels the balminess of summer with the heat of the firework. This time, they all wear Gentoku's shirts, and she sees Sento, leaning against the railing, one hand on his drink and the other brushing Banjou’s cheek. The fireworks illuminate them in different colors, blue, orange, and red, and sometimes, against all logic, her dad is there too, doting on the amnesiac physicist and telling her bad jokes.  
  
Then, she wakes up, and the room is empty except for Sawa curled up against her back.

Sawa stayed.

Everyone else left.  
  
Misora turns over and buries her face in the warmth of her chest. She curls her small fists into the back of Sawa’s shirt, and thinks of her warm brown eyes and the promises she’s made never to leave.  
  
Misora rubs the cotton of Sawa’s shirt between her fingers, comparing the texture to the khaki of his coat.

She’s never been enough to make anyone stay.  


  
**;;**

  
  
Gentoku drags the back of his hand across his brow, wiping the sweat away as the sun sets on Hokuto.  
  
He takes a deep breath and looks out onto the rows of crops, contemplative. Before the farm - before Kazumi - he had never worked hard labor a day in his life. When he was young, due to his father’s influence, he had been swaddled in designer clothing and everything had been handed to him on a silver platter. He was never truly qualified for any job he ever had, much less to rebuild the country. Faust was the only thing he ever made for himself, and he’ll carry the burden of it with him until he dies.  
  
He and Kazumi travel together, occasionally, to aid reconstruction with their beyond human strength. Gentoku donates all of his money as well; some to the farm, but mostly towards the restoration effort. His father’s mansion in Touto’s capital shelters people whose homes were ripped from the surface of the Earth. Any leftover assets Gentoku has, he sends along to Sawa-san.  
  
He had started to take up sewing, though he’s not the best at it. However, the people in Kazumi’s farm are humble and kind, and accept his gifts without protest. They know his past, but still greet him with a smile when the day begins at dawn.

When the war had reached and threatened Kazumi’s workers, Gentoku was the one to have actually saved them; and for that, they consider him a hero. In the brief, rare moments where Gentoku finds himself smiling back at them, he feels like he really might be.  
  
A new and changed man.  
  
Gentoku suddenly feels fingers on the back of his neck, grazing the fresh, prickly short hair there.  
  
“Are you going to shave your beard next?” Kazumi asks. His fingers trace the skin of Gentoku’s spine through the cotton of his shirt, and the touch makes him want to shiver. “What will I call you then?”  
  
“I know you like it,” Gentoku replies. Kazumi seems satisfied with his answer. He presses his nose against Gentoku’s neck and inhales his scent. The sudden displacement of air tingles in that spot and he can feel the shift of breath in Kazumi’s chest against his back. He can’t help but chuckle a little. “Potato.”  
  
Kazumi slides his arms around his waist. He’s had relationships before; politician’s daughters, debutantes from influential families, and one mad scientist. But they were all means to an end - _this_ end. It had never been like this before.  
  
“You’ve been good to me,” Gentoku reminds him. “More than I deserve.”  
  
_He’s made me into the man I am,_ Kiryu Sento’s voice begins to play in his head. _He’s why I fight._

The reminder makes his chest feel heavy, but he leans into Kazumi’s touch and the feeling fades. He understands now, how Sento felt about Banjou Ryuga. He understands love.  
  
He expects protest, but instead, he feels Kazumi’s smile tighten against his skin. He kisses the top of Gentoku’s head, where the stubble of hair meets what he left long.  
  
“Are you staying?” Kazumi asks.  
  
Kazumi has the same faith in him that his father did. While Gentoku believes himself a changed man, his political merits weren’t earned. It’s not like the life he’s built here, with Kazumi.  
  
“Yes,” he answers, after a long moment of silence.  
  
Kazumi hums to himself, as if thinking over his answer. Gentoku braces himself. He expects Kazumi to tell him to go, that he needs to focus and rebuild Touto instead -  
  
“You’ve changed,” Kazumi assures him. After another beat of silence, he continues, “Your father would be proud of you regardless... I know I am.”  
  
The swell in his heart is foreign, but he welcomes the sudden surge of warmth it causes. He breaks their embrace and turns around to face him. Kazumi leans in to kiss him, but stops, eyes flickering toward his chest.  
  
_I know,_ his shirt reads.

  
  
**;;**  


  
Sawa has experienced death, but never loss.  
  
In the orphanage, Sawa wasn’t allowed to grieve her competitors. However, her heart bleeds for Misora, whose experienced so much loss she almost personifies the concept. Sawa wants to talk to her about it, but Misora adamantly avoids it. Sawa can tell Misora is still guarded, still recovering from all the bruises, maybe.

So she waits.

Her upbringing might not have taught her compassion, but it taught her patience.   
  
Sawa tries to savor the moments where she can make Misora smile (even though Sawa still wakes up with damp spots on her clothing - and chooses not to comment on it).  
  
They lay on the rooftop together often, gazing at the stars and drawing lines between them. Sometimes, Misora falls asleep while they talk late into the night, and Sawa needs to carry her from their mats to the bed they share in the lab.  
  
On her twentieth birthday, Sawa presents her with an envelope.  
  
“Information?” Misora asks, looking at her curiously. She opens it with caution, her eyes then beginning to glass over as she stares at the twin certificates.  
  
Sawa had gotten her stars named after them.  
  
“That geek,” she says, tearing welling in her eyes. “He would have _loved_ this.”  
  
It’s the first time she’s spoken of the genius physicist since -

“What was Ryuga-kun like as a child?” Sawa asks, picking up a frame from the table in the foyer of the small town house. It’s an old school photo, with Ryuga not being much older than thirteen in it. His face is rounder, compared to the sharp jaw she knew of so well, and his hair - black, not a light brown - is around the same length as hers. Sawa puts her fingers on the glass, manicured nails grazing the tips of the dark green ribbon on his neck.  
  
She looks at the eyeglasses on his face and smiles. Sawa deducted he had vision problems, but he stubbornly never wore the thin wire frames she found in the lab’s kitchenette, no matter how many times he was urged to do so.  
  
She steels herself to not cry, not now.  
  
“Hell if I know,” his grandmother grumbles. Her voice is low and gravelly, and her speech pattern is rough - like his was. “He was in foster care for a bit, after his parent’s accident. Ryuga was a teenager by the time I got him,” she snorts to herself. “ _Ryuga_. It’s quite the name, huh?”  
  
Sawa nods and sets the photo back in place.  
  
“He didn’t remember much by then. But he was always angry, always getting into fights and what not. Too much of my daughter in him. She didn’t even tell me she was pregnant, you know? Look where it got them both. I thought, once he brought that girl home and went pro, it’d be different, but -”  
  
The old woman’s shoulders rise and fall as she gives an exhausted sigh.  
  
“Kubo-san,” Sawa says - it’s his mother’s maiden name. She holds the strap of her purse close to her chest and takes a few steps forward. “We’re having a small ceremony soon. Would you like to come?”  
  
She lets out a huff that almost sounds like a laugh, “I’m too old to travel, Takigawa-san, but … take whatever you need to remember my grandson.”  
  
She takes a photo of Ryuga’s parents: grinning while holding him at the maternity ward in Yokohama. She also takes a plush of a green serpentine dragon with a thick, obvious stitch down the middle where it must have been ripped apart.  
  
After she shuts the car door, she turns on the radio and lets the music drown out the sound of her tears. She cries all she can, so when Misora sees her, her eyes are dry.  


Attachments cause pain. She’s known this her whole life, and during her time at Nascita, the wisdom hung over her like a sword on a string. Yet she couldn’t help the swell she felt in her chest, spending time with Misora or helping Sento untangle an intriguing mystery. She tried to fight the smiles she got in private when she thought about seeing them again, but she couldn’t deny her own heart in the end.  
  
However, life is fragile. She’s always known this too; because she’s felt the neck of other children snap under her small, delicate feet.

 _This is price you pay,_ she hears President Nanba say as the tears fall down her face. She curls her fists in the material of her skirt and watches the tears stain it as the music crescendos.  
  
Her first kill had been her roommate for as long as her memory stretched and the closest thing she ever had to a relationship of any kind. They held hands when they thought no one was watching. The details of her face have become hazy with time, but Sawa still remembers the sound of her laugh and the blood smearing at the corner of her mouth before they decided it was Sawa or her.  
  


_Love is fleeting, but Nanba is forever._

  
**;;**

  
_He should have a grave,_ he thinks. _Ryuga should have a grave._  
  
He asks for the last name of Ryuga’s late finacè. Sawa-san agrees he might have liked to be put to rest near her. However, the nearby suburb where the small plot of graves laid had been destroyed, raw earth now in its place.  
  
They search through his belongings, looking for something to bury in place of a body.  
  
Sawa-san sifts through the box of his personal effects from the day he was arrested from the prison. She’s set aside a creased copy of Kasturagi’s job ad and Ryuga’s engagement ring on the nightstand.  
  
Kazumi kneels over a small trunk at the foot of the bed. Inside held everything Ryuga had acquired over the past year. The only thing Kazumi sets aside is an opened pack of thin rubber hair ties. Yet he sees a glossy red surface while he’s sifting through Ryuga’s bizarre assortment of disguises. He picks it up and runs his fingers over the cracked leather - Ryuga’s boxing gloves.  
  
It feels like an appropriate memento to keep for himself.  
  
“It still smells like them,” Mii-tan says, addressing the room.  
  
The voice makes his heart jump. He lifts his chin slightly and sees her figure at the side of bed. Her thighs are pressed into its side, the material of her pale night gown folding over it slightly. It’s her first change of clothes since the battle. He dares to look at her face.

The first he notices is that Sawa has pinned her hair out of her face; and the second is the purple flannel she draped around her shoulders, covering the delicate sheer material of her gown. There’s a wetness to her cheeks, as she holds Ryuga’s blanket to her chin. Kazumi can see the white of her knuckles in the plaid.  
  
Comforting her feels self-serving, so he averts his eyes. He hears heels march across the floor and fabric muffling the sound of sobs. When Sawa-san passes him, he notices dried blood on her brown pumps.  
  
Kazumi wonders who it belonged to.  
  
They bury “him” on what used to be the sky road, next to Kazumi’s friends. They decided on bringing one keepsake each. Kazumi gathered drawings Sento had made of him; Mii-tan has a box with receipts from the dates they’d gone on; and Sawa has a flash drive with an unfinished article advocating for his innocence.  
  
Mii-tan holds their keepsakes, as he and Sawa dig. When they’re done, he ties the makeshift grave together with a strip of torn fabric from the flannel Mii-tan chose.  
  
He wants to reach out to comfort her. He hesitates for a moment, but she accepts the touch and digs her nose in the crook between his arm and his chest. His nerves subside and his blood warms as his jacket absorbs the tears.  
  
After death, time will numb the pain. Kazumi knows this; his parents left the farm to him when he was only eighteen. When the soil went bad a year after, he watched the people he cared about - the people his parents entrusted to him - starve.  
  
But when he returns to the farm, his friend’s deaths hurt more than they did before. He sees them in the faces of their families; and when his mind is clouded with exhaustion after a long day, he still expects to see them, clapping him on the shoulder and congratulating him for the day’s work. He turns when he sees blue, yellow, or red in the corner of his eye, but they are never there, and the realization makes the pain fresh again.

 

  
“Good evening!” Mii-tan cheers, chirper as ever, from the inside of his phone. “It’s everyone’s idol, Mii-tan!”  
  
The screen illuminates his face in the darkness of the room. Gentoku stirs in his sleep and turns to wrap his arm around Kazumi’s waist. His beard prickles his bare skin. Kazumi smiles and supports himself by resting his cheek in his hand.  
  
He imagines Sawa-san behind the camera. He can see her pressing the side of a bulky headset to her ear, checking the sound, giving Mii-tan an encouraging smile and a thumbs-up.    
  
He lets himself imagine Sento in the lab with them, staring at equations on the glass whiteboard with a puzzled expression. He imagines Ryuga smiling on the other side of the glass, tracing what Sento has written.  
  
Kazumi turns his phone vertically. He taps the bottom of the screen, bringing up the comments section, and starts typing.  
  
**HokutoMiifan17** : i miss you, mii-tan!  
  
Misora falters for a moment, breaking character. Then, she nods, her high ponytail eagerly bouncing with the movement of her head. She splits her face with a happy grin, her eyes shining.    
  
“I’ve missed all of you too,”  she says to him.  


  
**;;**  


  
Takumi keeps a different sleep schedule than them; and on good days, he doesn’t see them at all. He hates feeling the Isugrugi girl’s sad eyes on him. Takigawa-san tries to interact with him, yet he finds it odd. Though she smiles at him and says pleasant things, Takumi can see she’s pained and he can’t stand it. However, she’s a competent lab partner, when he needs one. But whenever Takumi feels choked by the thick air of grief, he goes to visit his mother (she is a better cook than Takigawa, anyway).  
  
“I knew it was you,” his mother says, when they sit down for dinner. She looks eagerly between him and the tamagoyaki. “You cried when you ate my cooking.”  
  
Her tone is teasing, but her eyes are wide and expectant. It’s almost as if she’s looking for a reaction, or perhaps a trace of the kindness that Sento given her when they met. It’s that specific look he comes to Hokuto to escape and seeing it again creates a knot in his chest. They’re always looking for the ghost of Sento in him.  
  
“I was different,” Takumi replies curtly. He can’t explain it to her. How could he, a genius, even begin to explain something he didn’t understand himself.  
  
“Well, I liked it, though I miss the face I gave birth to. You and Banjou-san were very considerate. I saw your transformation … Your father would be so proud of your invention,” she says, unknowingly adding onto the things he can’t explain to her. It causes a knife-like twist in his chest.  
  
Takumi slices into the tamagoyaki and says nothing.  
  
“Where is Banjou-san now?”

 

  
  
  
Takumi sits up when he hears ceramic clack onto the surface of his desk. Takigawa-san hovers next to him, and there’s a white piece of cake in front of him. Takumi notices part of what must be the letter ‘B’ in magenta frosting.  
  
He cautiously picks up the plate and fork. It must be the Isurugi girl’s birthday. He had thought he heard music and footsteps upstairs, but wasn’t sure what the occasion was for.  
  
“Everyone’s here,” Takigawa-san informs him.  
  
The statement carries the implication of an invitation.  
  
Takumi rejects it.

  


  
“Why are you here?” Takumi asks later in the night, when hears the heels - too heavy to be Takigawa-san’s - clanging loudly against the metal stairs.  
  
“Perhaps you could use the company.”  
  
Takumi only looks at him so he can see his sneer. He’d forgiven Gentoku long ago for using him. But it’s his pathetic attempts at camaraderie since the end of the war that made Takumi feel like he’s being scalded with hot water.  
  
Takumi decides to absorb the sight of him - the absurd outfit - and thinks of the man he once shared his ideals with. That shared vision and any ideals left were gone, along with their connection.  
  
“I have my work,” Takumi says, turning back to his desktop with his shoulders hunched. The brightness of screen is low enough that he can see his reflection. The face that looks back at him no longer phases him. “Not all of us are content to live mediocre lives. Besides, you can’t expect me to take you seriously in _that_.”  
  
Takumi vaguely gestures at Gentoku’s outfit. Takumi has glimpsed into Gentoku’s closet before, during the course of their affair, but he’d never seen it in full force. Currently, Gentoku’s dressed like the Isurugi girl’s idol persona. There’s a thick white headset in his hair, cropped at the sides now, and rabbit ears sewn into the collar of a pink-and-white button down underneath denim overalls.  
  
It’s the shorts that disgust (and embarrass) him the most.  
  
Takumi sighs.  
  
“How’s the farmer doing anyway?” Takumi asks, feigning interest. “The man I knew would only ever go to the countryside for a photo op.”  
  
“I’m not that man anymore.”  
  
Takumi knows that’s true, now. Hardly any trace of the man he thought he loved was there. But for all his wisdom, he foolishly still wants to torment him.  
  
“If that’s what makes you better feel about yourself.”  
  
“It does,” Gentoku says, startling Takumi with his certainty. It brings back a faint glimmer of older days. “Do you?”  
  
Takumi ignores him until he leaves.

 

  
  
  
“I know you can see what’s going on.”  
  
Sometimes, when he’s working, Takumi will make a mistake, just to see if Sento will correct him. Sometimes, when he looks at the Isurugi girl, he doesn’t avert his eyes immediately, expecting something to stir within him - but nothing ever does. Sento doesn’t reply, nor acknowledge his presence in their shared mindscape. Takumi only gets the back of his coat as Sento stares into out into the white expanse.  
  
“It’s been months now,” Takumi tries, “Are you ever going to say anything?”  
  
_No matter what the cost is,_ Sento’s words - part of a memory - echo through the space between them, _you have to make it out alive._  
  
The memories begin to float through space, like the equations that form around him before he transforms into Build. Takumi taps one of the memories, and the setting of the lab envelopes the void.  
  
The lights are low and Banjou steps towards him. Takumi can feel a strange tightness in his chest. He never understood the relationship between Sento and Evolt’s spawn with the brain power equivalent of an ape; but he can’t deny how handsome he is, especially with the soft expression he wears here. His thick brow is knitted with concern, and his dark eyes shine with emotion.  
  
“Sento,” he says, his voice is low and gravelly. The proximity of his face quickens his pulse. “I know you told me not to say it, but —“  
  
Impulsively, he reaches out and puts a finger on his lips. Banjou looks confused for a moment, then smacks his hand away.  
  
“Godammit, Sento! Stop avoiding this, _we could die tomorrow_ —“  
  
“Calm down, muscle head,” Takumi finds himself saying. His tone is exasperated, but he feels a swell of affection all the same. “We’ve been through too much for it to end now.”  
  
Another memory melts into this scene.  
  
“Is this ... a love confession?” Banjou asks, eyes wide and longing, though his tone is playful.  
  
Banjou sticks a love letter to the small mannequin’s wooden palm. He slowly inches his own with towards Sento’s, making Sawa gasp behind them.  
  
“No!” Takumi replies, smacking Banjou’s doll on the head.

 

Now, he’s standing over and watching Banjou, who’s asleep in the lab’s bed. He’s holding the small mannequins under his chin, grinning blissfully. His chest feels tight again, and a sense of doom weighs over him.  
  
Takumi sticks a note to his forehead.  
  
_I’m sorry,_ Sento had written.  
  
This scene ends and bleeds back into the darkness of the lab. Banjou is staring at him, a strange mix of anger and concern evident on his features.  
  
Something burns in his pocket. Against his will, Takumi takes Banjou’s hand. His calloused palm is rough on the top of his fingers. Takumi reaches inside of his coat, and a ring gleams between them in the dim lit.  
  
“Ryuga,” Takumi starts. He doesn’t recognize the softness in his own voice, and the name feels foreign on his tongue. He slips the gold band onto Banjou’s ring finger. “You’ve given me so much, more than I could ask for, more than I deserve. You've made me into the man I am. Without you, I wouldn’t have made it this far … you said I gave you a future, right? So, let me give you mine.”  
  
His eyes lock with Banjou’s.  
  
“When this is over, I’ll say the words,” Takumi assures him.  
  
Banjou kisses him. He touches his shoulders, and pushes Sento’s coat to the floor. His hands desperately search the planes of his body, and the metal of the ring is cold against his skin. The taste of tears lingers as the memory crumbles.  
  
Takumi blinks a few times, and shakes his head, hoping it will somehow get rid of the lingering feelings. He'd never been touched like that.

Sento is facing him now, his head bowed and his bangs covering his dark eyes. He’s wearing the same outfit he was in that particular memory, as always. It’s not the first time he’s lived through one of Banjou and his memories, and it won’t be the last. It’s a risk he takes every time he lets his mind wander through this place, and Sento is always here with his memories of the other man.   

“It’s over, Sento,” Takumi sighs. “Why can’t you move on?”  
  
He doesn’t react.  
  
;;  
  
;;

  
;;

  
_if there's no behind you when your soul embarks,_  
**  
** **i’ll follow you into the dark.**

**Author's Note:**

> check me buildposting 24/7 @kaijinrights on twitter 
> 
> thanks to khris, asllapiscu @ ao3 / mythxl @ twitter, for being a prince and beta'ing this for me


End file.
